UNLV Runnin' Rebels Head Coach Josh Pastner: "It's Weird Even To Say There's A New Pac Coming Around"

The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team brought in head coach Josh Pastner to take over the head coaching job this offseason. They managed to lure him out of the TV studio and back to coaching. His first season with the team has come with mixed results. We've seen the Rebels look great at times, and we've seen them look terrible at times. Despite the mixed results, this team is much improved and clearly heading in the right direction during the first year of the Pastner era. He had spoken to Bruce Pascoe of tuscon.com about his time in TV and the new Pac-12.

UNLV Runnin' Rebels Head Coach Josh Pastner On His Time In The TV Studio

“The nice thing about being in TV is you have a great opportunity to really study the game, study different programs, go to practices and shoot arounds, talk to coaches. When you’re competing against them, they aren’t going to let you behind the scenes.

I could see what things I did well in my first 14 years as a head coach, and some other things where I thought ‘We’ve got to get better at this area or that area.’ It really gave me a chance, from a 30,000-foot perspective, without the pressure of winning and losing, to really get better as a coach. You didn’t have to make a decision on, ‘How are you going to guard this ball screen? What are you going to do on this back screen? What are you going to do in this out of bounds play?’

I loved TV. Absolutely loved it. I had some other (coaching) opportunities, but I didn’t feel they were better than television, and the opportunities that I had in television are hard to get. But when the UNLV job opened, to me, it was an awesome opportunity. It was incredible, because it’s a massive job. The tradition of UNLV is awesome. It’s a sleeping giant. I really believe that maybe the trees just need to be shaken a little bit to kind of wake it back up.”

Pastner On The New Pac-12

“It’s weird to even to say there’s a new Pac coming around. I look at the Pac-10 as when there was Arizona, UCLA, USC, up and down the coast. What’s interesting is (conference) records — like how does that work? It’s just not the same, but that’s because I was there for so long. That all being said, college sports is evolving and ever changing, literally, in real time. So who knows? Could Arizona be back in the Pac at one time, or could UNLV go to the Big 12? Could Arizona be in the ACC? Stanford and Cal’s in the ACC. I mean ...”

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